Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has instructed ministries and local governments to eliminate barriers to investment after foreign direct investment fell sharply in the first two months of the year

He told them to regularly review procedures related to investment and amend them if they are found to obstruct investments and their effective use, Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon (Saigon Times) Online newspaper reported Monday.

He also instructed them to continue working on regulations that would help complete the legal framework related to investment.

FDI projects worth US$1.54 billion were licensed in the first two months, a 62.5 percent fall year-on-year, the ministry’s Foreign Investment Agency said.

Analysts expect Vietnam to attract increasing amounts of FDI this year and next since its own and the global economies are improving.

The World Bank expected the world economy to grow by 3 percent this year and 3.3 percent in 2015 compared to last year’s 2.2 percent.

Vietnam is also expected to attract more FDI this year because foreign investors will want to grab the opportunities brought by the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact being negotiated by 12 nations, including the US and Vietnam, and likely to be signed soon.